Category Archives: Technology and Jobs

“According to an analysis by BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership between labor unions and environmental groups to expand “green economy” jobs, the standards that Mr. Trump now proposes to reverse would create an estimated 570,000 jobs in the United States by 2030, including 50,000 in light-duty vehicle manufacturing. Right now in Michigan, nearly 70,000 workers are working on components and materials to improve fuel-efficiency in cars, trucks and SUVs.”

Strong and true. Good paragraph asking, where is Wilbur Ross?

Here is a comment I support:
Christine McM is a trusted commenter Massachusetts 21 hours ago

I think the cuts to the job retraining programs are the most heinous part of the Trump budget. Aren’t these the programs designed to prepare coal miners (no, those jobs aren’t coming back, because no one in their right mind is going to re-open a shuttered mine when gas is so much cheaper to produce) for the energy jobs of the future?

Like most things Trump, the items cited in this editorial reflect more the disorder in Trump’s mind than any cohesive strategy. I mean, it sounds like a series of opposing actions, that taken together, produce a net zero change in the status quo. How can you promise jobs when tariffs, trade wars, and gigantic walls will exert a tax on the movement of goods, services, and component parts?

The president’s proposals on jobs to date remind me of his actions on healthcare: take a system that greatly expanded access but didn’t go far enough in mandating participation or regulating the insurance market and replace it plan that coverers fewer people for more money. A lot more, particularly for the old.

In other words, if it’s not broke, just fix it anyway by breaking it. Trump is taking an economy that was finally investing in new technologies and virtually guaranteeing that all that progress would be thrown out the window, replaced by a return to dirty water, polluted air, unsafe products, and corrupt (and unaccountable) capitalism.

Call it the Trump doctrine: Nothing is so good that we can’t make it far worse.

“Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is. ­Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.That robots, automation, and software can replace people might seem obvious to anyone who’s worked in automotive manufacturing or as a travel agent. But Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s claim is more troubling and controversial. They believe that rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in the United States. And, they suspect, something similar is happening in other technologically advanced countries.”